Automatic budget cuts would be ‘disaster,’ Hagel says

Chuck Hagel told a Senate panel on Thursday that looming automatic budget cuts would be disastrous for the Pentagon, ratcheting up pressure on Congress to replace them.

Hagel, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Defense Department, said that billions of dollars in cuts slated to begin March 1 would hit the military in a variety of ways and urged lawmakers to do away with them.

“When managers are not given the flexibility and the opportunity and the tools to manage with complete uncertainty as to what’s ahead, that’s disaster,” Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Economists have warned of the dangers to the U.S. economy if the $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts over nine years are allowed to go into effect.

The cuts would be split between military and domestic programs. The Pentagon, meanwhile, has already begun pulling back, freezing for example civilian hiring.